Personal Finances Archives - Pajama Pants Finance

09Sep 2019 by Galen

Financial planning lessons from Subnautica

Galen's musings, Personal Finances, Running a Business

I love Subnautica. It’s amazing. I lose hours and hours to it without realizing that they’re passing by. Really the only downside is if my wife tries to get my attention, she invariably makes me jump out of my chair because the atmosphere can make me so anxious. Stupid Reapers. Anyways, the reason I say all of that is there are some important planning lessons you can take from Subnautica and apply to your above sea level life. Let’s dive into it. This will have some spoilers. Survival first then fancy stuff Your first task in Subnautica is to get your baseline survival and survival gear in order. You need to figure out how to get food, water, basic materials, and the tools that let you slowly advance. As pretty…

02Sep 2019 by Galen

Attractive states for streamers

Personal Finances, Running a Business

If you’re a streamer your cost of living can have a dramatic impact on your ability to succeed in your business. For background on this article read this cost of living basics article I wrote recently. In this article we’ll look at the best places for streamers to live based on cost of living and internet speed. I used data on cost of living from here and internet speed from here. Subsequently, I went in to specific city data from here. For each state I looked at the top 2 cities by size as well as all cities over 250k population. Finally, I threw in some information on some of the common streaming cities to give a sense of how they compare on cost. I pulled the data for those…

03Dec 2018 by Galen

2018 year end planning

Insurance, Investing, Personal Finances, Running a Business, Taxes

There’s one month left in 2018! So, what should you do for your streaming business and personal finances with the last month of 2018? Unfortunately, there are some opportunities that close off at the end of the year. Fortunately, you’ve still got time to implement them! Business Create a Profit and Loss (P&L) A P&L documents what your business has earned and spent this year. I wrote more in depth about it here. The main importance of this document is the information it gives you. With an accurate P&L you can make good estimations on any tax you might owe, what you can pay yourself, can find areas of improvement, and can compare against previous years to track trends. Cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. Don’t neglect monitoring…

23Oct 2018 by Galen

What to do with old 401(k) plans

Investing, Personal Finances

If you’ve ever changed to a new job it can be hard to decide what to do with your old 401(k). Do you leave it as is? Roll it over into a new 401(k)? Roll it over to an IRA? Pull it out all together? Let’s dive in to your options. This is something that’s relevant for pretty much anyone who worked for a company that offered a 401(k) plan. If you’re a streamer then you might eventually open your own 401(k). If you’re in the gaming industry you probably have a decent option at your company. Most young professionals working for larger companies have some sort of plan. Decision Criteria There’s no one answer to if you should roll over an old 401(k). Instead, you need to consider a…

24Sep 2018 by Galen

Getting things in order before starting planning

Personal Finances

Welcome to my once every couple of months self-serving post. Today I want to talk about something I hear a lot that I think misses the point. Often, I have prospects (and others) tell me that they want to get organized or just take care of some financial housekeeping before starting to work with me. I think that’s a mistake. What I hear It’s mostly in that intro paragraph but many times I’ve had people tell me that they want to get organized before meeting with me or that they’re embarrassed for me to see how disorganized their personal finances are. Sometimes it’s how much debt they have. It’s always some sort of embarrassment. What I think I get it. Money’s one of those things that’s pretty taboo in our…

20Aug 2018 by Galen

Common Investing Misconceptions

Personal Finances

Last week we covered common planning misconceptions. This week it’s common investing misconceptions! What can I say; I’m not in a mood for long intros. It’s hard to start investing Luckily, it’s not super hard to start investing. Later, we’ll get in to some of the decisions you should consider (or outsource!) For now, we live in a world with internet access to everything you can pretty easily set up a brokerage account. Vanguard, Fidelity, Acorns, or a robo advisor like Betterment can all be good options for getting started. I need a ton of money to invest Nope! You don’t need a ton of money, just a savings plan. When you’re starting out the amount you save matters a lot more than investment return. For instance, if you’re saving…

13Aug 2018 by Galen

Common Planning Misconceptions

Personal Finances, Running a Business

Running your own business can be a real pain. First of all, you need to do all of the things that actually keep it running day to day. For streamers that involves streaming, community management, improving the stream’s quality, and a whole host of other things. However, it should also involve planning for the future. Here are some of the common planning misconceptions I see in streamers around business and finances. It’s one and done You put in a ton of time and effort, come up with a plan, and you’re freed from all future planning burdens. Right? Right? Nope. Planning is a process, whether it’s for your business or your finances. You can (and should) work hard to make a solid plan for yourself. However, no plan survives first…

16Jul 2018 by Galen

Planning for charity streaming

Personal Finances, Running a Business, Stream Tips

I love how much the streaming community contributes to charity. Games Done Quick, St. Jude PLAY LIVE, GuardianCon, and many other events yield millions of dollars (and more each year!) for awesome charities. Beyond that individual broadcasters run their own charity streams for specific causes they’re passionate about. However, unless you’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars from streaming you should do your business a favor and plan for your charity streaming. Far from reducing the amount of charity streaming, adequate planning should help increase the amount that broadcasters are able to contribute in time, energy, and income. Why you need to plan around charity streaming If you rely in any way on your income from streaming then you need to plan around charity streaming because you’re likely to earn…

25Jun 2018 by Galen

Cost of Living and Full-Time Streaming

Personal Finances, Running a Business

Small businesses fail at a high rate. After all, starting a business is a risky venture. If you’re extremely lucky, you’ve got a spouse with a good, steady job. If you’re lucky, you’re starting a side business or something that doesn’t require a ton of initial capital. But if you’re unlucky, it’s something like a restaurant with tons of expensive equipment and huge staffing needs. I open with this because as a streamer you’re a small business. While a lot goes in to making a business successful, one of the most common causes of failure is that the business can’t support its owner in time. The business is making some money but the owner ran out of runway. We know streaming is a viable career. We’re fortunate enough to have…

19Mar 2018 by Galen

In what order do I save my money?

Personal Finances

We’ve covered it before but saving early can yield HUGE results over the long term. You benefit from building good habits, getting compound growth on your side, and from actually saving up money. However, one of the most common questions I get from clients is about where to save their money. After all, you want to have some in the bank so you can use it for day to day living but having it all there is likely a bad idea. As always, this is general advice and there are many things that could impact the actual order you use. Account types First, check out this article for a rundown on the different types of accounts that are available to you. It’s a pretty long article but it’s super helpful.…

Category: Personal Finances